the scope of volunteer activity and public service

BROWN_FMT.DOC 06/22/00 11:19 AM

THE SCOPE OF VOLUNTEER ACTIVITYAND PUBLIC SERVICE

ELEANOR BROWN*

I

INTRODUCTION

The idea of public life in America is premised on individual initiative. De-mocracy demands that citizens give public voice to their views; a market econ-omy demands that people earn their keep. When they are not satisfied with theresults of such large and largely impersonal institutions, Americans volunteer.In 1996, the most recent year in which a presidential election was held, 54.2 per-cent of the adult population voted; 63.2 percent worked; and 48.8 percent vol-unteered.1 Although the proportion of the population volunteering in 1996 fellshort of the proportion voting, the amount of time donated loomed large incontrast to the time it takes to vote: Volunteers gave an average of 4.2 hours oftheir time every week.2 Delivering meals to shut-ins, raising money for thePTA, coaching Little League−in myriad ways, volunteers weave importantpieces of the social fabric.

This article provides an overview of the scope of volunteering in the UnitedStates. It begins with the question “What is a volunteer?” and, with issues ofdefinition and measurement in mind, surveys the available estimates of the sizeof the volunteer workforce. It then considers the purposes to which this labor isput. Turning from volunteer work to its workforce, it examines some determi-nants of volunteering, paying particular attention to factors shaping the volun-teer activities of the young and the old.

Copyright © 2000 by Eleanor BrownThis article is also available at http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/62Brown.* Professor of Economics, Pomona College.

This article was prepared for the Amateurs in Public Service conference held at Duke University,Nov. 12, 1999. I would like to thank the participants in that conference, with special thanks to EmmettCarson and Charles Clotfelter, for helpful comments, and the John Randolph Haynes and DoraHaynes Foundation for financial support for this research.

1. See U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, STATISTICAL ABSTRACT OF THE UNITED STATES 288, 391,397 (1997); VIRGINIA A. HODGKINSON & MURRAY S. WEITZMAN, GIVING AND VOLUNTEERING INTHE U.S.: FINDINGS FROM A NATIONAL SURVEY 2 (1996). In this article, data from HODGKINSON &WEITZMAN will be identified as referring to the year 1996 even though the twelve-month period inwhich data was collected extends back into 1995.

2. See HODGKINSON & WEITZMAN, supra note 1, at 3.


18 LAW AND CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS [Vol. 62: No.4

A. What Is a Volunteer?

Scholars have striven to be precise in their usage of the word volunteer.One particularly thoughtful definition defines a volunteer as

an individual engaging in behavior that is not bio-socially determined (e.g., eating,sleeping), nor economically necessitated (e.g., paid work, housework, home repair),nor sociopolitically compelled (e.g., paying one’s taxes, clothing oneself before ap-pearing in public), but rather that is essentially (primarily) motivated by the expecta-tion of psychic benefits of some kind as a result of activities that have a market valuegreater than any remuneration received for such activities.3

In short, volunteering is purposeful activity that is not compelled and the pro-ductive value of which is not captured by the volunteer.

One might quibble with the notion that volunteering needs to result insomething that has market value, in contrast to activities that were intended tohave market value but went awry, or ones that pursued goals not related tomarket value such as lobbying on behalf of unpopular causes. Generally,though, this definition is an apt one for the purposes at hand. It encompassesinformal volunteering—good deeds done directly, such as shopping for a frailneighbor or babysitting for a harried one, unmediated by any formal organiza-tion, such as a church or a school, through which larger-scale volunteer effortsare coordinated. Such good deeds are not compelled, and they yield value thatis not materially returned to the volunteer. The definition also extends to sti-pended volunteers. As the word “stipend” implies, programs such as Ameri-Corps offer modest pay to doers of good works, on the theory that society needsfull-time volunteers and that it is hard for very many people to give so muchtime freely and continue to keep body and soul together. As long as stipendedvolunteers are employed in “activities that have a market value greater than anyremuneration received,” they are volunteers as defined above.

The boundaries to volunteering drawn by this definition are by no meansuniversally employed, even among scholars. Ram Cnaan, Femida Handy, andMargaret Wadsworth survey this and other definitions of volunteering used inlegal and academic sources, and identify four dimensions addressed by all ofthem: (1) the voluntary nature of the act; (2) the nature of the reward, whetherentirely psychic or simply sufficiently unremunerative for the act to remainlargely donative in nature; (3) the auspices under which the work is performed,either orchestrated by an organization or not necessarily so; and (4) the benefi-ciaries of the act and their relationship to the actor, be they strangers or simplyremoved from the family circle.4 As one reviews data on volunteering, this tax-onomy will provide a helpful checklist in keeping track of differences in defini-tions and how they shape the data that, in turn, shape one’s view of the volun-teer landscape.

3. David Horton Smith, Altruism, Volunteers, and Volunteerism, in VOLUNTEERISM IN THEEIGHTIES 23, 25 (John D. Harman ed., 1982).

4. See Ram A. Cnaan et al., Defining Who Is a Volunteer: Conceptual and Empirical Considera-tions, 25 NONPROFIT & VOLUNTARY SECTOR Q. 364, 369-70 (Sept. 1996).


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The data on volunteers come largely from household surveys; therefore, tothe extent interviewers do not propose definitions of volunteering as nuanced asthat set out above, any interpretation of household data is aided by a sense ofwhat volunteering means to the general public. To get a sense of the public’sunderstanding of the concept of “volunteer,” Cnaan et al. construct twenty-oneexamples of persons engaged in acts that contain elements of volunteering.5

They asked a sample of 514 persons to rank, on a scale from one (“definitely avolunteer”) to five (“not a volunteer”), how firmly each scenario fits their no-tion of volunteering.6 The example respondents ranked highest is the only onethat is “pure” on all four dimensions, describing someone who freely chooses towork unpaid through an organization to benefit a stranger: “An adult who of-fers his or her time to be a Big Brother or Big Sister.”7 Respondents ranked ahigh school student giving a presentation on leadership at a religious conferenceas more purely a volunteer than one working for a nonprofit to add a line to arésumé.8 In turn, the résumé builder is ranked above the student compelled bya graduation requirement to do community service.9

B. Volunteering in the United States

In May 1989, the Current Population Survey (“CPS”) of the U.S. Bureau ofLabor Statistics included supplementary questions about volunteering done inthe preceding twelve months.10 The CPS reaches roughly 60,000 households,gathering information on more than 150,000 individuals in those households.11

The results of this large-scale survey suggest that about twenty percent ofAmericans volunteer in a given year. 12

In contrast to the CPS estimates, a series of smaller surveys conducted bythe Gallup Organization for Independent Sector (“IS”) finds much higher ratesof volunteering. The CPS estimate of thirty-eight million volunteers in 1988-89is bracketed chronologically by IS estimates of eighty million adult volunteers,or forty-five percent of the adult population in 1987-88, and ninety-eight millionadult volunteers, or fifty-four percent of all adults in 1989-90.13 Although the ISsurvey covers fewer than two percent as many individuals as the CPS does,14

there are reasons to suspect the IS estimates are more representative of volun-teering among adults.

5. See id. at 375.6. See id.7. See id. at 376.8. See id.9. See id.

10. See Howard V. Hayghe, Volunteers in the U.S.: Who Donates the Time?, MONTHLY LAB. REV.,Feb. 1991, at 17, 17.

11. See id. at 23 n.1.12. See id. at 17.13. See HODGKINSON & WEITZMAN, supra note 1, at 1-30.14. See id. at 1; see Hayghe, supra note 10, at 23 n.1.



First, the IS questions are posed in ways likely to elicit more extensive recallof volunteer activity. The CPS allowed for responses by proxy, and about halfof the volunteering data was collected from persons other than the person towhom the data refer. Such proxies “were significantly less likely to report vol-unteer activity than respondents representing only themselves,”15 which suggeststhat proxies were not always aware of the volunteer activities of the personsthey represented.16

Second, the IS data cover age groups and employ definitions of volunteeringthat differ from those used by the CPS. The IS data include informal volun-teering, while the CPS excludes it and the IS survey covers persons ages eight-een and up, in contrast to the CPS, which covers persons ages sixteen and up.17

These differences can be expected to yield a higher count of volunteers in the ISdata as IS draws a broader definition of volunteering and excludes an age groupin which rates of volunteering were, in the 1980s, typically low.

Based on data from the 1996 IS survey, just under half, 48.8 percent, of theadult population volunteered at some time during the twelve months precedingits spring survey in 1996.18 Volunteers donated an average of 4.2 hours perweek, for a total of 20.3 billion hours in 1996.19 Of this total, 15.7 billion hoursfall into a narrower definition of volunteering mediated by organizations, re-ferred to as “formal volunteering.”20 Using average rates of compensation inthe non-farm economy, this formal volunteering had a labor-market value ofmore than $200 billion dollars.21 Because the IS questionnaire defined volun-teering in part as “actually working in some way to help others for no monetarypay,”22 and therefore did not capture stipended volunteering, these figures un-derestimate the number of hours worked by volunteers, as defined by Smith.23

C. Utilizing Volunteer Labor

Volunteers are used throughout the economy, from the arts to youth devel-opment to supporting churches, synagogues, and other religious communities.As shown in Table 1, IS data classify volunteer assignments according to fifteencategories—fourteen specific categories, plus one catch-all. With two excep-tions, volunteer assignments are classified by their area of endeavor, using thefollowing categories: the arts, education, environment, health, human services,international or foreign concerns, political organizations and campaigns, privateand community foundations, public and societal benefit, adult recreation, re-ligious organizations, and youth development. The other categories describe

15. Hayghe, supra note 10, at 19.16. See id.17. See id. at 23; see HODGKINSON & WEITZMAN, supra note 13, at 1-2.18. See HODGKINSON & WEITZMAN, supra note 1, at 3.19. See id.20. Id.21. See id.22. Id. at E-192 app. E.23 See supra note 3.



the organizational framework within which volunteers operate: informal volun-teering, whatever the nature of the service provided, and giving time to work-related organizations, whatever their missions might be.

TABLE 1VOLUNTEER TIME ACROSS ACTIVITY AREAS, 1996 IS SURVEY

Area of ActivityPercentage of

Volunteer Hours

Religious organizations 24.5%

Informal 22.1

Youth development 15.4

Education/instruction 14.3

Human services 10.6

Health, incl. mental health 10.4

Arts, culture, and humanities 5.4

Work-related 4.3

Public/society benefit 3.6

Recreation (adults) 3.0

Political 3.0

Environment/animals 1.8

Other 1.7

Private and community foundations 1.3

International/foreign 0.6

Total*: 99.9

Source: These data are based on the author’s own calculations using the 1996Giving and Volunteering survey data.* Total does not sum to 100 due to rounding.

The number of activities volunteers take on and the numbers of hours theydevote to volunteering vary widely, but the typical volunteer works for a singleorganization. Sixty-two percent of the volunteers in the 1996 IS survey reportvolunteer involvement with one organization only.24 Twenty-eight percent ofvolunteers report multiple sites of involvement; the remaining ten percent ofthe sample failed to answer the question.25 These multiple-assignment volun-teers are active enough to raise the average number of activities per volunteerto about three.26 There is similar dispersion in the number of hours volun-

24. See HODGKINSON & WEITZMAN , supra note 1, at 1-34.25. See id.26. See id. at 1-30.



teered—one in five volunteers devoted less than an hour a week to volunteer-ing, while one in four gave five hours or more weekly.27 These variations sug-gest at least three ways to measure the economy’s apportionment of volunteersacross different areas of activity: the proportion of the total volunteer laborforce involved in each area, the proportion of all volunteer assignments to befound in each, and the proportionate distribution of hours of volunteer time.

In all three measures, religious organizations are the biggest recipients ofvolunteer services. More than half of all volunteers, 52.9 percent, report at leastone religion-based volunteer activity.28 More than a quarter, 25.8 percent, of allvolunteer assignments are religion-based.29 Religion also represents one quar-ter, 24.5 percent, of the total number of hours of formal volunteering.30

The second and third areas, behind religion, are youth development pro-grams, which garner 15.4 percent of volunteer hours, and education, represent-ing 14.3 percent of volunteer time.31 The two other areas that claim at least tenpercent of the total number of hours spent on formal volunteering are healthand human services. These five biggest areas are the ones that deal with“church, children, and charity” and together, they account for three quarters ofvolunteer time.

Throughout those areas of activity, volunteers serve as a low-cost deliverymechanism for social services. Since the 1980s, there has been a call for privateinitiative to replace some portion of government initiative in the provision ofsocial services, with emphasis on the roles to be played by nonprofit organiza-tions and volunteers. Much has been written about the stresses placed on thenonprofit sector by shifts in federal expenditures.32 Even as it cut funding to ar-eas of nonprofit activity, the federal government has sought to increase the sup-ply of volunteers to select social causes through a panoply of federally sup-ported programs. Part II discusses some of those programs.

II

PUBLIC SERVICE: VOLUNTEERS IN THE PUBLIC SECTORAND STIPENDED VOLUNTEERS

Volunteering, being largely unremunerative, is generally less than a full-time commitment, and volunteers typically have other and larger commitmentsin their lives. These circumstances render volunteering an essentially local phe-nomenon, not something for which volunteers generally relocate. Therefore,

27. These conclusions are based on the author’s own calculations using the 1996 Giving and Volun-teering survey data.

28. See id. at 1-31.29. See id.30. These conclusions are based on the author’s own calculations using the 1996 Giving and Volun-

teering survey data.31. This data does not include informal giving because informal giving spans all the activity catego-

ries.32. For a recent review, see Lester M. Salamon, The Nonprofit Sector at a Crossroads: The Case of

America, 10 VOLUNTAS 5 (1999).



when the federal government needs full-time volunteers willing to relocate toproject sites to serve the public interest, it must in general compensate them.When the duties are clearly public-spirited and the pay minimal, Americansnonetheless tend to accept these activities as volunteering: It is common par-lance, for example, to speak of “Peace Corps volunteers.”

Local governments, by virtue of being local, usually do not have to buy theirvolunteers, in part, because they provide attractive volunteer opportunities.Jeffrey Brudney points out that clarity of mission is important to volunteers,and most local government agencies have very clearly defined responsibilities.33

A 1985 survey of 736 towns and cities found that 72.6 percent of them used vol-unteers.34 Of these, roughly half had only modest programs, often centered onpolice auxiliaries and fire fighting.35 More than one in five communities usingvolunteers, however, used them extensively enough to have someone appointedas a volunteer coordinator, and about one in eight used volunteers in at leasthalf a dozen capacities.36 A 1993 survey of county governments, conducted bythe National Association of Counties, estimated that in 1992, county govern-ments utilized volunteer services with a market value of $1.8 billion.37 Of the417 counties responding to the survey, ninety-three percent used volunteers,with more than half using them to support firefighting and emergency medicalservices, services for the aging, and parks and recreation.38

At the federal level, the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993established AmeriCorps, folding into it the existing Volunteers in Service toAmerica (“VISTA”) and National Civilian Community Corps.39 In the sameyear, the Corporation for National Service (“CNS”) was created as an umbrellaagency to oversee AmeriCorps, Learn and Serve America, and the NationalSenior Service Corps, which includes the Retired and Senior Volunteer Pro-gram (“RSVP”), the Foster Grandparent Program, and the Senior CompanionsProgram.40 In fiscal year 2000, the service programs administered under theCNS had combined budgets of more than $731.6 million.41

Since its inception, AmeriCorps has placed more than 100,000 stipendedvolunteers into programs across the country.42 Local initiatives apply for

33. See Jeffrey L. Brudney, The Availability of Volunteers: Implications for Local Governments, 21ADMIN. & SOC’Y 413, 421 (1990).

34. See Sydney Duncombe, Volunteers in City Government: Advantages, Disadvantages and Uses,1985 NAT’L CIVIC REV. AT 356, 359.

35. See id. at 364.36. See id. at 363-64.37. See Sandra Reinsel Markwood, Volunteers in Local Government: Partners in Service, PUB.

MGMT, Apr. 1994, at 6, 7.38. See id.39. See 42 U.S.C. § 12501 (1994).40. See Corporation for National Service, About Us: Legislative History (visited May 11, 2000)

<http://www.nationalservice.org/about/leg_history>.41. See id. at 2.42. See Corporation for National Service, History of National Service (visited Apr. 22, 2000)

<http://www.cns.gov/research/history.html>.



AmeriCorps support, and projects are chosen through a competitive process.AmeriCorps volunteers have one- and two-year commitments to full-time vol-unteering. They are paid a stipend—$7,945 was the standard annual amount in1996—and, if they lack health insurance, are given health coverage worth about$1,200.43 Volunteers are also given a scholarship—$4,725 in 199644—for eachcompleted year of AmeriCorps service, up to a maximum of two. The CNS alsoprovides funds to local organizations to help cover various costs associated withtheir utilization of AmeriCorps volunteers, such as transportation and supervi-sion. Estimates of the costs of the AmeriCorps program per volunteer rangefrom $18,80045 to $31,000.46

AmeriCorps volunteers provide a wide array of services, from helping Habi-tat for Humanity build homes to cleaning beaches to teaching children to read.The goals of AmeriCorps and the other national service programs are to “helpsolve the nation’s unmet education, public safety, environmental and other hu-man needs,” to make communities “stronger through service,” to improvethrough their experiences the lives of those who serve, and to instill “a commonexpectation and experience of” service among Americans “as an integral part ofcivic responsibility.”47

Early program evaluations of three AmeriCorps projects calculated benefit-cost ratios of 1.54 to 2.60, numbers that have been touted as indicative of thesuccess of the program in addressing social needs in a cost-effective manner. 48 Itis not clear, however, that these numbers are terribly helpful in assessingAmeriCorps’s effectiveness as a service-delivery strategy. In particular, muchof the calculated excess of benefits over costs comes from high estimated re-turns to AmeriCorps tuition vouchers. Subsidizing education for persons simi-lar to AmeriCorps volunteers through education awards, under the assumptionthat the subsidies are necessary and sufficient for the volunteers to continuetheir education and so increase their lifetime earnings, can yield a high benefit-cost ratio. This result justifies programs that encourage people to go to school,but says nothing about the effectiveness of AmeriCorps volunteers in helpingothers. Including wages paid to participants as “participant benefits” as well ascosts, and counting the shortfall between stipends and market wages as a psy-chic benefit received by the volunteer, are debatable accounting techniquesthat, like the education award, focus cost-benefit numbers on the volunteers’outcomes rather than on service delivery. In short, these studies do not provide

43. See Harris Wofford & Steven Waldman, AmeriCorps the Beautiful?, POL’Y REV., Sept.-Oct.1996, at 28, 30.

44. See id. at 30.45. See id.46. See James L. Perry et al., Inside a Swiss Army Knife: An Assessment of AmeriCorps, 9 J. PUB.

ADMIN. RES. & THEORY 225, 242 (1999).47. Corporation for National Service, supra note 42, tbl.1.48. See U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, REPORT HEHS-95-255R, AMERICORPS*USA

BENEFIT-COST STUDY 2 (1995).



definitive information about the effectiveness of social service provisionthrough AmeriCorps volunteers.

However effective AmeriCorps may be, its labor force is small in compari-son to the efforts of unpaid volunteers. In comparison to roughly 100,000 vol-unteers having served in AmeriCorps, the 15.7 billion hours volunteered annu-ally by American adults are the equivalent of about eight million full-timeworkers.49

A. Adult Volunteers

Some basic demographic data on volunteering among adults is presented inTable 2. Volunteering is highest among adults who are white, married, welleducated, middle-aged, employed, and from households with above-average in-comes.

Economists predict that a high opportunity cost of time depresses volun-teering, as do high search costs in matching volunteers to appropriate activities.These competing tendencies influence the volunteer behavior of busy adults.On the one hand, the busier people are, the harder it is to find time for any onething, including volunteering. On the other hand, the busier they are, the morethey come in contact with opportunities to volunteer. In general, the second in-fluence trumps the first, but access to resources, be they time, money, or thehuman capital accumulated through education, also matters.

With the caveat that one must be careful about attributing causality whenobserving correlations, these principles can be seen in the 1996 IS survey ofadults. Work and children make people busy, and yet both are associated withgreater rates of volunteering. People who are retired or not employed are lesslikely to volunteer than people who are working. Women who work only part-time and people who work for themselves are more likely to volunteer thanpeople whose schedules must accommodate working full-time for someoneelse.50

As shown in Table 2, people with children at home are more likely to volun-teer than people with no children at home. Although the IS data do not distin-guish between school-age and preschool-age children, the CPS data suggest thatparents coping with preschool-age children are less likely to volunteer than par-ents whose children at home are all ages six years and up.51

49. See HODGKINSON & WEITZMAN, supra note 1, at 2.50. These conclusions are based on the author’s own calculations using the 1996 Giving and Volun-

teering survey data.51. See Hayghe, supra note 10, at 18.



TABLE 2DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF ADULT VOLUNTEERS, BY SEX, 1996

Percent Volunteering in Past Twelve Months

Characteristic total male female

Overall 48.8 45.1 52.2Education:

High school or less 35.6 30.4 40.1Trade school/some college 54.5 51.2 57.5College graduate 70.7 67.0 74.7

Age:18-34 years 46.1 43.0 49.335-54 years 55.1 51.5 58.655 years and older 43.5 37.7 47.9

Marital Status:Married 55.8 51.5 60.2Single 39.5 40.4 38.6Divorced/separated 44.6 31.3 45.2

Number of children at home:None under age 18 45.1 n.a. n.a.At least one under age 18 53.7 n.a. n.a.

Employment Status:Employed 50.8 48.0 56.2Not employed 44.4 35.1 47.0Retired 40.1 33.2 46.1

Annual Household Income:Under $20,000 34.5 32.9 35.5$20,000-$39,999 45.6 41.0 50.2$40,000 and up 60.6 54.9 67.0

Minority Status:White 51.9 47.3 56.1Non-white 36.4 36.1 36.6

Region:East 46.0 n.a. n.a.Midwest 59.6 n.a. n.a.South 39.0 n.a. n.a.West 54.7 n.a. n.a.

Religious Affiliation:Catholic 49.1 45.0 52.7Protestant 48.8 46.5 50.7

Source: See VIRGINIA A. HODGKINSON & MURRAY S. WEITZMAN, GIVING ANDVOLUNTEERING IN THE U.S.: FINDINGS FROM A NATIONAL SURVEY D147-162, app. D tbls.1-3(1996).



Access to resources helps to increase the likelihood that a person volun-teers. The relationship between educational attainment and rates of volun-teering is particularly striking. People who pursue education beyond highschool volunteer much more than those who do not; college graduates are farmore likely to volunteer than high school graduates who do not complete acollege degree. Volunteer rates also rise with income. Differences across eth-nic groups are correlated with differences in average incomes and educationalopportunities and, most simply, in the likelihood of having been asked to volun-teer.52

Among other predictors of adult volunteering, both attitudes and behaviorsmatter.53 People are more likely to volunteer if they think they can make a dif-ference. Among people who agree with the statement “It is in my power to dothings that improve the welfare of others,” fifty-eight percent volunteered, incontrast to thirty-three percent of persons who disagreed.54 Beyond feeling ca-pable of accomplishing something, individuals need to want to accomplishsomething, if they are to be motivated to volunteer. Among survey respondentswho reported that “helping individuals meet their material needs” was a poten-tial “major motivation” to action, sixty-two percent volunteered, far more thanthe thirty-five percent volunteering among those who reported it to provide “nomotivation.”55 For those finding a major motivation in “enhancing the moralbasis of society,” the volunteer rate was sixty-four percent; for respondents whofound this to provide no motivation, the volunteer rate was thirty-two percent.56

Behaviors also correlate with volunteering. Having volunteered as a youthdramatically increases the likelihood that a person volunteers as an adult, fromthirty-one percent to sixty-five percent.57 Regular attendance at a church, syna-gogue, or other place of worship has a similar effect on volunteer rates; amongpersons who do not attend services regularly, the volunteer rate is thirty-onepercent, much lower than the sixty-four percent rate among persons who attendservices nearly every week.58 Membership in secular organizations, such asservice clubs, fraternities, veterans’ groups, bowling leagues, and book clubs, isas strong a discriminator between volunteers and non-volunteers as member-ship in a religious congregation. Among persons belonging to no secular or-ganization, the percentage volunteering was thirty-two, much lower than theseventy-three percent among persons with some membership affiliation.59

Finally, there is a distinct lifecycle profile to the propensity to volunteer.Adult volunteering peaks in the age range thirty-five to fifty-five years, when


53. See discussion infra Table 3 and related discussion.54. HODGKINSON & WEITZMAN, supra note 1, at 4-100.55. Id. at 4-118.56. Id.57. See. id. at 4-88, tbl.4.1.58. See id. at 4-91, tbl.4.259. See id. at 4-94, tbl.4.5.



people have become established in their careers, their personal relationships,and their communities.60 Each side of the lifecycle offers its own interestingquestions about engaging citizens in volunteering. Do young persons’ experi-ences with volunteering or mandated community service change their lifetimepaths of volunteering? Will increasing levels of health and educational attain-ment among older Americans increase their rates of volunteering? These ques-tions are addressed in turn.

B. Youth Volunteering

Data on adult volunteers show clearly that persons who volunteered whileyoung are far more likely to volunteer as adults than persons who did not vol-unteer as youths.61 Much of the interest in youth volunteering has focused notso much on what youth volunteers can accomplish in their communities as onhow youth are drawn into volunteering, and how volunteer experiences duringyouth affect civic awareness and future volunteering.

Although one out of five teens—and one out of every three teen volun-teers—began volunteering before the age of twelve,62 two recent large-scalestudies of youth volunteering have focused on children ages twelve and up. In1996, IS surveyed a representative sample of 1,007 teens aged twelve throughseventeen.63 Also in that year, the National Center for Education Statisticswithin the U.S. Department of Education conducted the 1996 National House-hold Education Survey (“NHES”).64 The survey’s final sample included 7,940students enrolled in grades six through twelve.65 The IS survey asked questionsabout volunteering; the NHES asked about community service.

Both surveys find that teen volunteering or community service, either volun-tary or required by schools, is widespread. The IS survey results suggest thatfifty-nine percent of teens aged twelve through seventeen volunteered at sometime during the past year, with boys and girls roughly equally likely to volun-teer.66 The NHES was conducted from January through April and askedwhether students had volunteered during the school year to date; within thisshorter timeframe, an estimated forty-nine percent of students participated incommunity service.67 Compared with the IS estimate that 48.8 percent of the

60. See infra Table 3 and related discussion.61. See infra Table 3.62. See HODGKINSON & WEITZMAN, VOLUNTEERING AND GIVING AMONG TEENAGERS 12 TO

17 YEARS OF AGE: FINDINGS FROM A NATIONAL SURVEY 2-25, tbl.2.2 (1996).63. See id. at 1.64. See MARY JO NOLIN ET AL., NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS, U.S. DEP’T OF

EDUC., NCES 97-331, STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN COMMUNITY SERVICE ACTIVITY 1 (1997).65. See id. at 30.66. See HODGKINSON & WEITZMAN, supra note 62, at 1.67. See NOLIN ET AL., supra note 64, at 4.



adult population had volunteered during a twelve-month period,68 both of thesesurveys suggest that school-age teenagers volunteer at higher rates than adults.69

Although a larger proportion of teens than adults reports some volunteeringwithin the past year, many teenagers’ experiences are quite limited. Teens havemany “one-shot” options for volunteering, such as a one-day program to pickup trash in a public park or beach, or a trip to sing in a nursing home or to servefood at a soup kitchen. In the NHES survey, about half of the participants whohad performed some community service reported they had done so only on oneor two occasions.70 At the other end of the spectrum, seven percent of theNHES sample had devoted between thirty-one and eighty hours to communityservice during the school year to date; and five percent had given more thaneighty hours of their time.71

The IS data yield higher estimates of the extent of volunteer engagementamong teens. Only nineteen percent of their sample gave less than one hourper week.72 Six percent reported a weekly average of three to five hours, andthirteen percent reported more than five hours a week.73 Among teens whovolunteered, the average weekly hours given is 3.5.74 Projecting their data to thenational level and valuing teen volunteer time at the then-prevailing minimumwage of $4.25 per hour, the IS data suggest that teens provided 2.4 billion hoursof formal and informal volunteering, and the value to organizations of the for-mal volunteering was $7.7 billion dollars in 1995.75

Should teens be encouraged to volunteer? Exposure to community serviceis touted for its educational value: Through community service, students expe-rience a mode of productive self expression and civic participation and learnsomething about the diversity of their communities. For educators seeking ef-fective ways to promote teen volunteering, one lesson is clear in the IS data:Ask them. Roughly half, 51.3 percent, of teens reported having been asked tovolunteer.76 Of those, a whopping 93.4 percent did indeed volunteer.77 Amongteens not personally asked to volunteer, only 23.5 volunteered.78 While some ofthis difference is undoubtedly due to selection bias—people ask those teenswho are likely to agree to volunteer—the large number of teens not asked tovolunteer and the dramatic difference in volunteer rates suggest that proposing

68. See HODGKINSON & WEITZMAN, supra note 1, at 2.69. It is worth noting that the Independent Sector’s questions eliciting information on volunteering

were the same for their surveys of teenagers and adults; therefore, the higher rates of involvement forteenagers is not an artifact of more detailed questioning.

70. See NOLIN ET AL. supra note 64, at 4.71. See id. at 6.72. See HODGKINSON & WEITZMAN, supra note 62, at 1-16, tbl.1.6.73. See id.74. See id. at 2.75. See id. at 1-15.76. See id. at 2-45, tbl.2.10.77. See id.78. See id.



volunteer activities to teenagers can be a remarkably effective way to promotevolunteering.

There are at least two reasons why asking a teen to volunteer can be ex-pected to increase volunteering. First, it conveys confidence in the teen’s abilityto make a good volunteer. Second, it makes teens aware of specific opportuni-ties for volunteering. Both can be accomplished by building community serviceinto school curricula, and having school personnel invite students individually toparticipate. Both surveys find that the majority of school-aged teenagers attendschools that encourage community service.79 In the IS data, fifty-nine percentreport that their school encourages community service.80 One student in six re-ports attending a school that requires community service for graduation, doublethe proportion reporting such requirements in the first IS survey of teens, con-ducted only four years earlier.81

The NHES survey also finds that most school children in grades six throughtwelve attend schools that arrange or require opportunities for communityservice.82 Of the nation’s 25.7 million schoolchildren in grades six throughtwelve, the report estimates that 4.2 million attend schools at which communityservice is both arranged and required.83 Another 0.4 million attend schoolswhere there is a requirement, but the school does not arrange the service; and17.4 million attend schools that arrange but do not require community service.84

Only 3.7 million attend schools that neither arrange nor require communityservice.85 In other words, out of every six schoolchildren in grades six throughtwelve, one attends a school that arranges and requires community service; fourattend a school that arranges community service opportunities but does not re-quire them; and one attends a school that does not provide opportunities forcommunity service. A very few students, about 1.5 percent of the total, attendschools that require community service but do not arrange it.

The survey’s results suggest that a school policy of arranging communityservice options has almost as large an effect as both arranging and requiringcommunity service. Of children in schools that arrange but do not requirecommunity service, fifty-two percent had, at the time of the interview, per-formed some community service during the school year.86 This is only slightlyless than the fifty-six percent of students estimated to have performed commu-nity service in schools that both arrange and require it.87 These percentages arelarge compared with the participation rate for children whose schools neither

79. See id. at 3-58, fig.3.1; NOLIN ET AL. supra note 64, at 16.80. See HODGKINSON & WEITZMAN, supra note 62, at 3-58, fig.3.1.81. See id. at tbl.3.3.82. See NOLIN ET AL. supra note 64, at 16.83. See id. at 17.84. See id.85. See id.86. See id.87. See id.



arrange nor require community service, of whom thirty percent participate.88 Atschools where service is required but not arranged, only nineteen percent ofstudents had performed service by the time of the interview.89

The type of school students attend also affected the likelihood that theywould volunteer. Participation rates were higher at private schools than atpublic ones.90 Among private schools, the volunteer rate was higher at church-related schools, sixty-nine percent, than at others, forty-seven percent.91 Partici-pation rates were slightly higher, fifty percent versus forty-seven percent,among children exercising choice among public schools.92

Besides the type of school and the schools’ orientation toward communityservice, individual, family, and community factors also affected a child’s likeli-hood of volunteering. Students in the eleventh or twelfth grades, with highgrades in courses, and who were involved in many student activities had higherthan average participation rates.93 Girls participated more than boys; studentsof Hispanic or African-American background participated somewhat less thanwhites, as did students for whom English was not the language they spoke mostat home.94 Students who were active in other school activities, particularly instudent government, were more likely to be involved in community service; 81.7percent of students who have been active in student government reported hav-ing volunteered in the past twelve months.95

The likelihood of volunteering rose with household income, parents’ educa-tional attainment, the presence of a second parent or guardian in the home, andthe presence in the home of an adult who performs community service.96 Stu-dents were more likely to participate in community service regularly, ratherthan just once or twice, if there was an adult in the household who performedcommunity service or if a parent held a professional degree.97 Participationrates were also higher in communities with greater economic resources, wherepoverty rates were lower and rates of home ownership were higher.98

Multivariate analysis reveals that some of these correlations may not reflectdirect effects of school, individual, family, and community variables on partici-pation in community service. The two variables measuring a community’swealth—poverty and home ownership rates—have no statistical significance ina multivariate logistic regression.99 Similarly, household resources as measured

88. See id.89. See id.90. See id. at 13.91. See id. at 13-14.92. See id. at 15. One in seven public school children had a choice of what public school to attend.

See id.93. See id. at 5, 10.94. See id. at 8.95. See HODGKINSON & WEITZMAN, supra note 62, at 2-30.96. See NOLIN ET AL. supra note 64, at 12.97. See id.98. See id. at 14.99. See id. at 27.



by the number of parents and household income do not matter.100 Neither doesthe race of the student, nor attendance at a private school if that school is notchurch-related.101

Most important for policy considerations, attendance at a school that ar-ranged opportunities for community service had a large and positive impact onthe likelihood of student participation. In the 1996 IS survey of teens agestwelve to seventeen, when questioned about who asked them to volunteer forthe activity with which they were involved, “a teacher, school, or other schoolpersonnel” was the most common response.102 Neither requiring service nor thecombination of requiring and arranging service had independent statisticalpower. Combining this information with the results of the IS survey suggeststhat arranging volunteering opportunities for students and inviting them to par-ticipate seem to constitute a recipe for success.

Given the large scale on which America’s schools are undertaking commu-nity service initiatives, an assessment of these programs should be undertaken.There are reasons to expect that the payoffs while real may be delayed, perhapsfor decades. Evidence from panel data suggests that persons go through a life-cycle pattern of voluntarism.103 Self-centered forms of engagement dominateearly adulthood, peaking at age thirty-five. Once an individual is established inthe labor force, and in many cases becomes a parent, community-centered in-volvement takes on greater importance. When the time comes for communityinvolvement, the effects of early participation may well be seen.

III

DO VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCES DURING YOUTH PLANT SEEDSFOR FUTURE VOLUNTEERING?

Community service requirements are becoming prevalent in Americanschools, and people who volunteer during their youth are much more likely tovolunteer as adults.104 If this relationship between youth and adult volunteeringis a causal one, then school-based programs of required community service mayserve to breed future volunteers. Causal views stress learning: Communityservice can give young people a sense of the volunteer opportunities that areavailable, the knowledge that they can accomplish worthwhile tasks, and a tasteof the psychic rewards that flow from helping others. On the other hand, selec-

100. See id.101. These conclusions are based on the author’s own calculations using the 1996 Giving and Volun-

teering survey data.102. See HODGKINSON & WEITZMAN, supra note 62, at 4.103. Evidence for this view comes from work by Thomas Janoski and John Wilson, based on panel

data collected by the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan. Using three waves of theYouth-Parent Socialization Panel Study of children and their parents, beginning when the children are18 and ending when they are 35, Janoski and Wilson find that a student’s activities during high schoolsignificantly affect their level of community-oriented participation 17 years later. See Thomas Janoski& John Wilson, Pathways to Voluntarism: Family Socialization and Status Transmission Models, SOC.FORCES, Sept. 1995, 271, 279-83.

104. See infra Table 3 and related discussion.


: Autumn 1999]VOLUNTEERING AND PUBLIC SERVICE 33

tion-bias models propose that some people may simply be predisposed to volun-teer, regardless of age, by their attitudes and by access to resources that affordthem the option of volunteering. If the correlation between youth and adultvolunteering is due entirely to pre-determined behaviors, attitudes, and options,then compulsory community service will do little to create future volunteers.Any speculation about the effect of requiring community service on the futurebehavior of today’s students must engage the question of the extent to whichthe link between youth and adult volunteering is a causal one.

TABLE 3ADULT VOLUNTEERING, BY ATTITUDES, RESOURCES,

AND YOUTH VOLUNTEERING

Among Adults Characterized By Percent Volunteering

OverallVolunteered

as youth

Did notvolunteeras youth

Good attitudes (n=1067) 65 74 52

Income > $25,000 (n=1693) 55 69 36

Bad attitudes (n=123) 11 12 10

Income < $25,000 (n=895) 33 50 21

Single parents (n=174) 40 59 28

Good attitudesand adequate income (n=735)

72 78 60

Good attitudesbut single parent (n=66)

59 68 51

Good attitudesbut low income (n=299)

50 61 39

Bad attitudesbut adequate income (n=66)

14 14 13

Bad attitudesand low income (n=56)

7 8 7

Entire sample (n=2686) 47 63 30

Source: These data are based on the author’s own calculations using the 1996 Giving and Volunteer-ing survey data.Note: Persons with good attitudes strongly agree or mostly agree with the statement “It is in mypower to do things that improve the welfare of others,” and state as a major motivation either“helping individuals meet their material needs” or “enhancing the moral basis of society.” Personswith bad attitudes disagree with the first statement and report that the second and third statements’objectives provide no motivation. Persons with low (adequate) income have household income ofless than (no less than) $25,000.



The data presented in Table 3 illustrate the independent importance ofyouth volunteering, access to resources, and personal attitudes to rates of volun-teering among adults. The attitude variable, described below, is constructedfrom data available in the IS survey and is designed to reflect both a person’sdesire to contribute to society and her confidence that she can contribute.

Research on motivation to volunteer is consistent with this approach.Cnaan and Robin Goldberg-Glen review twenty-seven studies of individuals’motivation to volunteer.105 They extract from the literature twenty-eight com-monly cited motives and ask a sample of 258 “habitual volunteers” (defined asproviding at least one hour of direct service at least once every other week overa six-month period) and 104 non-volunteers to rate the personal importance ofeach.106 Some of the motives are altruistic: Volunteers agree with the statementsthat volunteering “[c]reates a better society,” and if they did not volunteer“[t]here would be no one to carry out this volunteer work.”107 Others were ego-istic: Volunteers noted motives such as “[b]roadening horizons” and the“[o]pportunity to vary activities.”108 There were material motives—“[g]ainingsome practical experience toward paid employment”—and social motives—vol-unteering provides an “[o]pportunity for relationships.”109

Respondents ranked the importance to their own behavior of each possiblemotivation on a scale from one (not important) to five (very important). Twomotives earned average rankings above 4.0: “[o]pportunity to do somethingworthwhile” and “[m]akes one feel better about oneself.” 110 Both of these dem-onstrate an egoistic pleasure found in performing actions that benefit others.

This information suggests two key attitudes for volunteers: First, one’s ac-tions have some impact, and, second, one can be motivated by concern for oth-ers. To measure a respondent’s sense of empowerment, I use the IS data tolook at the response to a question asking whether the respondent agrees or dis-agrees with the statement “It is in my power to do things that improve the wel-fare of others.”111 If the person answered that he or she strongly agrees ormostly agrees, he or she was considered to have an attitude of empowermentconducive to volunteering. The respondent’s concern for the welfare of othersis measured by the responses to two questions concerning motivations to givemoney or to volunteer. If a person listed as a “major motivation” either “help-ing individuals meet their material needs” or “enhancing the moral basis of so-ciety,” the respondent was considered to be concerned with others’ well-being,material or spiritual. As described earlier in this article, each of these attitudesindividually correlates significantly with the propensity to volunteer. These two

105. See Ram A. Cnaan & Robin S. Goldberg-Glen, Measuring Motivation to Volunteer in HumanServices, J. APP. BEHAV. SCI., Sept. 1991, at 269, 275.

106. See id. at 277-78.107. Id. at 279.108. Id.109. Id.110. Id.111. See supra Table 3.



avenues of concern, material and moral, are positively correlated with eachother but represent distinct phenomena; the correlation coefficient (betweendummy variables equaling one when there is major concern and zero whenthere is no concern) is about one half (.507).112

A respondent who was both empowered and concerned was considered tohave attitudes conducive to volunteering. These are referred to as “good atti-tudes.” A respondent who was neither empowered nor concerned is classifiedas having “bad attitudes.” Of the 2,686 respondents for whom information wasavailable, 1,067 possessed the “good” combination of attitudes—empowermentplus at least one of the two forms of concern—while 123 reported themselves tobe both disempowered and unconcerned.

Even with the best outlook on life, limited resources may limit people’sability to volunteer. Two constraints are considered—low income and singleparenthood. A person was coded as low income if his or her household incomewas less than $25,000; sensitivity analysis showed that changing the limit to$20,000 or $30,000 did not substantially change the results. A person was takento be a single parent if he or she was a single head of household, was neithermarried nor living with a partner, and lived with at least one child under the ageof eighteen.

As shown in the bottom row of Table 3, of the 2,686 survey observationscontaining the information required for this analysis, forty-seven percent volun-teered. The proportion of volunteering among those who reported youth vol-unteer experiences was more than twice that of non-youth-volunteers, sixty-three percent compared to thirty percent.

Attitudes and income also make significant differences in the proportions ofadults volunteering. The effect of controlling for the attitudinal variable is par-ticularly striking. Among people possessing a good attitude, that is, a sense ofempowerment and concern for others, sixty-five percent volunteered. Amongpeople with a bad attitude, that is, neither a sense of being able to make a dif-ference nor any motivation to improve others’ material or moral well-being,only eleven percent volunteered. People in households with higher incomeswere more likely to volunteer—fifty-five percent volunteered in the subsamplewith incomes of $25,000 or more, in contrast to thirty-three percent of thosewith incomes below $25,000. Single parenthood reduces volunteering to a rateof forty percent compared to forty-eight percent among the rest of the popula-tion.

The additional importance of youth volunteering is large in the subsamplesin which people face resource constraints. Among single parents, for example,only twenty-eight percent volunteer as adults if they did not volunteer asyouths, in contrast to fifty-nine percent volunteering among those who volun-teered when young. For people in households with incomes below $25,000, thevolunteer rate among those who did not volunteer as youths was twenty-one




percent, in contrast to a fifty-percent volunteer rate among former youth volun-teers. For people whose incomes were above $25,000, youth volunteering madethe greatest percentage point difference in volunteer rates. Without a youthvolunteer experience, thirty-six percent of this group volunteered—thirty-threepercentage points less than the sixty-nine percent who volunteered as adults af-ter having volunteered as youths.

Youth volunteering makes little difference among adults who possess nei-ther a sense of empowerment nor concern for others. Only eleven percent ofthe bad attitude group volunteered, and those who had volunteered duringyouth were only slightly more likely to volunteer than the others—twelve per-cent versus ten percent. Even with adequate incomes and youth volunteer ex-perience, the bad attitude group has only fourteen percent of its members vol-unteering. It may be that youth volunteering enlightens many people who enterthe experience with bad attitudes and come away empowered and engaged withothers. For adults who feel disempowered and unconcerned, youth volunteer-ing, having failed to dislodge these perceptions, had little to offer. The youth-volunteer experience may have provided information about volunteering op-portunities, but this information is not useful to people who neither feel thatthey would be effective volunteers nor show concern for the possible outcomesof such volunteering.

The lesson to be learned from this analysis is that, except for the bad atti-tude group, the experience of volunteering during youth appears to make a sub-stantial contribution toward spurring people to volunteer as adults. The rela-tionship between youth and adult volunteering is not simply the side effect ofsome other force, such as attitudes, organizational engagement, or relative free-dom from resource constraints, that encourages volunteering across the lifecy-cle.

At the other end of the lifecycle, older people have accumulated decades ofexperience and, with their children raised and retirement an option, many havethe time to take on new activities. Will they volunteer?

IV

VOLUNTEERING AMONG OLDER ADULTS

In thinking about adulthood, we often parse it into two pieces, workingyears and retirement years. When working members of a family retire, thefamily time budget suddenly may be less tightly stretched, and it is natural foreconomists to ask how time spent volunteering might respond to this reductionin competing demands for time. Sociologists might note that retirement re-moves persons from networks of contacts and from what may be an importantrole in their life, and they might ask how these changes affect people’s desire tovolunteer. Finally, retirement has historically been linked to declining health;therefore, health status can be expected to be a more important predictor ofvolunteering among the population over age sixty-five.



In the 1996 IS survey, older adults, with forty-one percent volunteering,were somewhat less likely to volunteer than younger adults.113 The NationalSurvey of Self-Care and Aging (“NSSCA”), a larger survey of older adults con-ducted in 1990-91, found low levels of volunteering among the aging.114 Thissurvey interviewed a stratified sample of 3,485 community-dwelling Medicarebeneficiaries living in the contiguous forty-eight states.115 The survey asked,“During the last 12 months, did you periodically do volunteer work?”116 Basedon answers to this question, it is estimated that 19.7 percent of older commu-nity-dwelling adults volunteer.117 This estimate is lower than the IS data report,and several explanations may contribute to the difference. First, because theNSSCA asked detailed information elsewhere about kinds of informal help-ing,118 volunteer work was likely to be interpreted as formal volunteering only.Second, the lack of prompting about kinds of volunteering may have led to lesscomplete recall in the NSSCA. Finally, the NSSCA asked about periodic vol-unteering,119 which might be expected to discourage affirmative answers frompersons whose volunteering was limited and performed at irregular intervals.In short, it is reasonable to conjecture that much of the shortfall in enumeratedvolunteering in the NSSCA comes from setting the bar a little higher in deter-mining who counts as a volunteer.

As is true among younger adults, being busy exposes older adults to oppor-tunities to volunteer, and this proves to be more important than the higher op-portunity cost of time in determining who volunteers. Persons over age sixty-five are more likely to volunteer if they are married and if they are employed,independent of age and health status.120 Among the admittedly small number ofpersons (sixty) in the 1996 IS data aged sixty-five and over who were workingfor money, fifty percent volunteered, compared to forty percent of those whowere not working for money.121

Being less busy, however, may be part of the reason why those older adultswho do volunteer, volunteer more. Older volunteers gave slightly more time,on average, than did their younger counterparts, giving an average of 18.2 hourseach month, about half an hour more than the 17.6 monthly hours put in on av-erage by younger adult volunteers.122 For organizations thinking about targeting


114. See Jean E. Kincade et al., Older Adults as a Community Resource: Results From the NationalSurvey of Self-Care and Aging, 36 GERONTOLOGIST 474, 477 (1996).

115. See id.116. See id. at 476-77.117. See id. at 477.118. See id.119. See id. at 476-77.120. See Susan M. Chambre, Volunteerism by Elders: Past Trends and Future Prospects, 33

GERONTOLOGIST 221, 226 (1993).121. These conclusions are based on the author’s own calculations using the 1996 Giving and Volun-

teering survey data.122. These conclusions are based on the author’s own calculations using the 1996 Giving and Volun-

teering survey data.



older adults for volunteer recruitment, it is worth noting that when attention islimited to formal volunteering, the gap widens, with older volunteers giving oneand one-half hours more time each month.123

Jean Kincade et al. use the NSSCA data to explain patterns of volunteeringamong older adults.124 Using data weighted to be nationally representative andmultivariate techniques, they examine the impact on the likelihood of volun-teering of several potentially important variables. Age is captured by dummyvariables, with categories sixty-five to seventy-four years, seventy-five to eighty-four years, and eighty-five years and up.125 Educational dummies represent pri-mary grades, some high school, high school or trade school diploma, and at leastsome college.126 There are five income levels, from below the poverty line to 400percent or more of the poverty line, and five categories for self-evaluated healthstatus, from excellent to poor.127 Also controlled for are sex, marital status, Af-rican-American heritage, rural versus urban residence, and whether the personlives alone.128

One key result of the analysis is that once health status has been controlledfor, the retirement years are not marked by a steady decline in volunteering.Persons aged seventy-five to eighty-four were not statistically significantly lesslikely to volunteer than persons aged sixty-five to seventy-four, and the pointestimate of their relative likeliness to volunteer, 0.96, was very close to one.129

Persons over age eighty-five are significantly less likely to volunteer than thegroup aged sixty-five to seventy-four.130

Health status has a powerful effect on volunteering. Persons in very good orexcellent health are more than eight times as likely to volunteer as personswhose health is poor. Married and widowed persons are more likely to volun-teer than never-married persons. The likelihood of volunteering rises dramati-cally with education, and less dramatically with income.

Chambre points out that demographic changes hold great potential for in-creased volunteering in this age group.131 Levels of good health and educationalattainment among older Americans are rising quickly,132 suggesting that evenwithout any policy intervention, volunteering among older adults is likely to in-crease in the coming decades.


124. See Kincade et al., supra note 114, at 478.125. See id.126. See id.127. See id.128. See id.129. These conclusions are based on the author’s own calculations using the 1996 Giving and Volun-

teering survey data.130. These conclusions are based on the author’s own calculations using the 1996 Giving and Volun-

teering survey data.131. See Chambre, supra note 120, at 223-24.132. See id.



V

VOLUNTEERING AND THE NATIONAL INTEREST

There are two strands of dialogue relating volunteering to the national in-terest. As discussed in the context of the AmeriCorps programs, one stressesthe service-delivery function volunteers can fill, as lines of government respon-sibility for human service provision are redrawn. A second major public dia-logue links forms of social engagement, such as volunteering, to levels of civicengagement and the functioning of civil society.

The much-cited work of political scientist Robert Putnam highlights groupmembership as an indicator of social engagement that fosters trust and civicparticipation among citizens.133 Volunteering can be argued to serve the samefunctions, and the 1996 IS Giving and Volunteering survey data include thequestions on trust and membership that are present in the General Social Sur-vey from which Putnam draws these data. The IS data, containing informationon both membership and volunteering, provide an excellent opportunity to de-termine whether volunteering, like joining, is associated with attitudes condu-cive to civil society, such as trust, as emphasized by Putnam, and also compas-sion, a variable contained in the IS data. The IS data allow extensions of thisanalysis to links between volunteering and additional measures of civic en-gagement, such as confidence in government and propensity to vote.134

Looking at any one form of socialization, such as participation in socialgroups, can at times confound the effects of related forms of socialization notunder study. For example, if married people learn to trust and married peopletend to join groups, then joining will be related to trusting, whether or not thereis a causal relationship between joining and trusting. Table 4 shows the resultsof logistic regressions relating the likelihood that an individual agrees that“most people can be trusted” to six possible attitude-forming experiences.These experiences include whether the individual belongs to a group other thana religious congregation, membership in a church or synagogue, and whether ornot the individual is working, has completed a four-year college degree, hasvolunteered in the past twelve months, and is living with a spouse or partner.135

These regressions measure the direct effect of the independent variables onlevels of trust and compassion. They maintain the working hypothesis that cau-sality flows from experience to attitudes, for example, that marriage builds trustrather than that only trusting people enter into marriage. This observation isalmost certainly an oversimplification of a two-way cycle of reinforcement in

133. See, e.g., Robert D. Putnam, The Strange Disappearance of Civic America, AM. PROSPECT,Winter 1996, at 34, 48.

134. Portions of the text of this section have been taken from an unpublished manuscript and devel-oped further. See Eleanor Brown & June Sager Speakman, Voluntarism and Political Activity: Doesthe Lone Bowler Volunteer? (Nov. 1997) (unpublished manuscript on file with author).

135. Because of retirement, widowhood, and lower levels of college completion in early generations,the analysis also controls for age.



which trust-building experience leads to trust that leads to further social as wellas civic engagement.

TABLE 4LOGISTIC REGRESSIONS OF TRUST AND COMPASSION

ON MEASURES OF ENGAGEMENT

Trust Compassion

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Intercept -1.743***(0.000)

-1.732***(0.000)

-0.535***(0.002)

-0.538***(0.001)

JOINSEC 0.137(0.176)

-0.148(0.123)

JOINR 0.139(0.144)

0.342*** (0.000)

ACTIVSEC 0.206*(0.061)

-0.146(0.163)

ACTIVR 0.116(0.215)

0.355***(0.000)

VOL 0.518***(0.000)

0.497***(0.000)

0.883***(0.000)

0.853***(0.000)

EDCOLL 0.836***(0.000)

0.843***(0.000)

-0.241**(0.017)

-0.227**(0.023)

MAR 0.192**(0.050)

0.191*(0.051)

-0.007(0.936)

-0.025(0.780)

WORK 0.246**(0.018)

0.244**(0.018)

-0.168*(0.078)

-0.175*(0.064)

AGE 0.008***(0.004)

0.009***(0.002)

0.001(0.647)

0.001(0.568)

number of observations 2252 2278 2446 2476

Source: These data are based on the author’s own calculations using the 1996 Giving and Volun-teering survey data.Note: The numbers in parentheses beneath the coefficient estimates are the probability of observingan estimated coefficient at least this far from zero in a chi-square distribution in which the true coe f-ficient is zero. That is, they are the probability levels at which one may have confidence that the ef-fect of the variable is different from zero.*** significant at the .01 level** significant at the .05 level* significant at the 0.10 level

As shown in Table 4, individuals are found to be statistically significantlymore likely, at a .05 level of significance, to be trusting if they are volunteers,



have a college degree, are working, or are living with a spouse or other partner.Trusting also increases with age. Membership in a church or synagogue andmembership in a noncongregational organization did not have statistically sig-nificant impacts on trust, when other socializing experiences were controlledfor. Replacing the membership variables with measures of membership in-volving at least monthly participation does not increase the significance of thereligious membership variable, but it raises the statistical significance of thesecular joining variable, which would be viewed as significant at the .10 level.

Persons were considered to be compassionate if they responded that feelingcompassion toward people in need was a major personal source of motivation.Only three of the variables have clear effects on compassion. Both membershipin a religious congregation and volunteering are strongly associated with thelikelihood of a person reporting that compassion is a very important motivatingfactor. Religious belonging and volunteering are significant at the .0001 level.The other significant variable is college education. Controlling for other fac-tors, individuals with a college degree were significantly less likely to reportthemselves as motivated by compassion. A respondent’s labor market statushad a marginally significant impact on compassion, with employed respondentsless compassionate at a .10 level of significance. Membership in a noncongrega-tional group had no significant impact on compassion, whether measured asbelonging to a group or being active in a group on at least a monthly basis. Ofall the forms of social interaction considered, from marriage to work to be-longing to groups, the only one significantly related to elevated levels of bothtrust and compassion was volunteering.

VI

CONCLUSION

Volunteering is a pervasive and growing phenomenon in the United States,of significance in both the numbers of persons who give their time and in thevalue of what their time can accomplish. The Independent Sector has recentlyreleased some key findings from its 1999 Giving and Volunteering survey. Thisnewest survey suggests that the proportion of American adults volunteering hasrisen to fifty-six percent.136 This estimate is up seven percentage points from IS’s1996 estimate, an increase that vaults the proportion of adults civicly engagedthrough volunteering past the proportion who voted in the most recent presi-dential election. Using prevailing labor compensation rates to value the esti-mated amount of time given in the twelve months before the survey, this volun-teered time is worth $255 billion137; for perspective, this amount surpasses thegross domestic product of Sweden. As American schoolchildren are increas-ingly exposed to community service, and as successive cohorts of Americans

136. See Independent Sector, Giving and Volunteering in the U.S. (visited Apr. 22, 2000) <http://www.indepsec.org/media/GandVsummary_1999.html>.

137. See id.



enjoy higher levels of health and educational attainment, the upward trend involunteering is likely to continue.

As valuable a resource as volunteering can be, there are limits to the extentto which government can expect volunteers to address its policy concerns. The1999 IS data suggest that at least half of the volunteering population is onlymarginally involved, participating in one-shot events or in conjunction with par-ticular holidays. More committed volunteers can make sustained contributionsto various endeavors, some of which serve ends pursued by government, but thearea of activity that garners the most volunteer time is religion. Governmentcan direct volunteer effort through the use of full-time stipended volunteers,such as those supported through AmeriCorps, but such direct government pro-grams are small in the landscape of volunteering. Most volunteering goes tochurch and family-related activities rather than farther-flung civic enterprise.Government enthusiasm for volunteerism should not rest on the hope of shift-ing responsibilities from government to voluntary action. Rather, volunteeringshould be respected for the substantial and varied contributions volunteersmake to causes chosen not through the political process, but directly by citizen-volunteers themselves.

the scope of volunteer activity and public service

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